Yeah, I'm not sure of the math either, but I would assume food would be the largest cost, so I'll give the math on that a guess. People eat roughly 2100 pounds of food a year (according to a random Google search I just did), which comes to 84,000 pounds over the course of 40 years. The Saturn V (largest payload launch vehicle) was capable of bringing a 100,000 pound payload to the moon. I would think, therefore, that perhaps three of those rockets would be sufficient to deliver a lifetime's worth of supplies. Two food rockets, and then another 100 - 150 thousand pounds worth of filters, supplies, whatever. If the cost differential between sending unmanned vs manned spacecraft is as large as I'm assuming, this would still be far more cost effective than the alternative.



"Only?" That seems quite a feat to me. This would probably require a radical new propulsion system to be developed, which would incur enormous engineering costs prior to the trip. And that's to say nothing of this plant that you figure will be delivered. In any case, that's only one of the challenges of getting them back. You still have to figure out how to launch from the surface of the planet. I suppose you could have a small lander module, but if you do that, you need to figure out how to transport hundreds of thousands to millions of pounds of fuel from the planet to the orbiting ship.

In any case, I think it's a little silly that we're arguing feasibility here, and you're hinging arguments on things that have yet to be developed.



It's not the consumables that are a problem. It doesn't cost THAT much to bring food along on a week long mission to the moon. The issue is all the complicated life support systems that must function perfectly, and I'm talking about cutting the run-time for those systems in half.



Yup, I fully agree with you on this point, particularly if there's water on the Moon, which I believe we've decided there is. I absolutely think it makes far more sense to start closer to home, and branch out from there. I mainly took issue with your point about us not sending people out "ne'er to return." I think it's very likely that our first permanent station on Mars will be of the one way variety. It's easier, more cost effective (at least, if you believe my arguments above), and probably no more dangerous than sending people to the moon in the 60s was.



I agree that at our slow rate of decline, you're right; it would be hard to damage earth enough to make it more inhospitable than Mars. The problem lies in catastrophe. A large asteroid hitting us, or a global nuclear war, or anything of that sort might not make earth more inhospitable than Mars, but it would probably wipe out the infrastructure we need to deal with the new environment.

In any case, we have all of our chickens in one basket at the moment (humans being the chickens ), and that's just not smart if you can avoid it. Besides, even if we don't NEED to colonize Mars for the resources, doesn't it make sense to do it anyway? Extra resources are always nice, and Mars isn't doing anyone any good in its current state.